Kenny Chapman
Contributing Writer
The Blue Collar Success Group

In my ebook The 7 Keys To Making More and Working Less the very first step of this process is developing what we call the “entrepreneur mindset.” We begin with the entrepreneur mindset because most people in the plumbing, heating and electrical industries approach the business from the technical aspect. We all started out with a truck or two and we ended up as the leaders, supervisors and owners of our companies. What we bring with us is a technically-based mindset, the mentality that when something is broken, we’ll fix it. But we can’t really apply that philosophy to our businesses, otherwise we’ll always be playing catch-up. We’ll always be behind the curve when it comes to achieving what we want. Instead of waiting for something to be ‘broken’ in the business and then figuring out how to fix it later, it’s best to understand how to prevent any ‘breakage.’

The entrepreneur mindset is characterized by proactivity and looking toward the future. It’s about identifying opportunities ahead of time and using them to produce tangible, positive results. The entrepreneur mindset centers around solution-based thinking where you are always looking for strategies, rather than dwelling on problems or negativity. It will help you turn problems into opportunities, therefore creating innovative ways to positively impact the company.

All of this might sound a little high-level, but cultivating the entrepreneur mindset is an important fundamental. The concept and thought process behind this mindset shift is truly simple, but can be a big transition from what most owners are used to. You’ve got to start thinking more like an entrepreneur, so you can view all areas of your company in terms of creating a profit center. We want to focus on doing a lot more of the things that make money and eliminating the things that don’t.